Canta la letra

Book and CD Description

Every one of these vol­umes can be used with any age chil­dren for the appre­ci­a­tion of poetry and music, and the devel­op­ment of con­cepts and values.

This vol­ume is par­tic­u­larly suited for lan­guage and vocab­u­lary devel­op­ment as well as fam­ily and iden­tity values.

If you are using this pro­gram to develop ini­tial read­ing skills, this vol­ume will allow for the rein­force­ment of the vowel songs. The vowel sub­sti­tu­tion songs: Una mosta, Yo te dare and La mar estaba ser­ena are excel­lent phone­mic aware­ness songs. A, a, a, mi abuelita me dará, an orig­i­nal poem by Alma Flor Ada has become a very well loved song in Early Child­hood edu­ca­tion. Isabel Campoy’s poems Mi abuelo and Color her­moso encour­age recog­ni­tion of fam­ily values.

Suni Paz musi­cal cre­ations draw from her exten­sive knowl­edge of Latin Amer­i­can and Span­ish musi­cal tra­di­tion mak­ing this CD and all CDs in the series a pow­er­ful intro­duc­tion to the His­panic musi­cal heritage.

The twelve poems con­tained in the book and the twelve songs con­tained in the CD are:

Una mosca – Folklore

A, a, a, mi abuelita me dará – Alma Flor Ada

Yo te daré – Folklore

La i minús­cula – Alma Flor Ada

La mar estaba ser­ena – Folklore

Un… en un… — Alma Flor Ada

Las cinco vocales – Folklore

Color her­moso – F Isabel Campoy

Mi abuelo – F Isabel Campoy

¡Qué miedo! – F Isabel Campoy

Arre, arre — F Isabel Campoy

Teacher’s Resource Book Description

This hand­book, inspired in the Trans­for­ma­tive Edu­ca­tion process devel­oped by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Cam­poy, explores the use of songs in the class­room and pro­vides spe­cific sug­ges­tions to be applied with Música amiga.

It is divided in two major parts. The first, Apren­der can­tando, explores the uses of songs in top­ics like:

The sec­ond part offers spe­cific sug­ges­tions for each of the 120 songs con­tained in the Música amiga program.

Author’s Note

This pro­gram com­bines the cre­ativ­ity of three extra­or­di­nary artists and human beings: Alma Flor Ada, Suni Paz and Ulises Wensell.

This program was originally created by Alma Flor Ada and Suni Paz as “Hagamos caminos”. When we revisited the idea together, I wanted to contribute my own personal sen­si­tiv­ity, humor, and cre­ativ­ity and I cre­at­ed a num­ber of orig­i­nal poems for Música amiga, which were also put to music by Suni. The value of fam­ily, the trea­sure of cul­ture, the impor­tance of main­tain­ing our lan­guage, the appre­ci­a­tion for learn­ing and rea­son­ing, and the joy of cel­e­brat­ing life in all its forms are some of the top­ics with which I expanded the contents of this program.

The art in these books was orig­i­nally cre­ated by Ulises Wensell for Hag­amos caminos., When devel­op­ing Música amiga we were delighted to be able to draw from the Hag­amos caminos art to illus­trate this col­lec­tion of poems/songs.

And an extra­or­di­nary com­bi­na­tion of tal­ents have given life and light to these books and CDs that can enrich all and every class­room with the gift of poetry, songs, and art.

Música amiga pro­gram description

There are ten books to this series, each with an accom­pa­ny­ing CD.

Each book includes 12 care­fully selected poems. All 120 poems are pre­sented as songs in the CD col­lec­tion. Some of the poems are from folk­lore, a num­ber of them have been orig­i­nally writ­ten by Alma Flor Ada and by F. Isabel Cam­poy. A few are from other renown poets.

All of these poems and songs can be enjoyed by chil­dren from Pre-K to 6th grade. As a mat­ter of fact, many can be enjoyed even by older students.

The first five vol­umes are par­tic­u­larly suited for help­ing develop spe­cific lit­er­acy skills and for the rein­force­ment of spe­cific syl­labic com­bi­na­tions as well as over­all lan­guage devel­op­ment. The last five vol­umes sup­port sus­tained lan­guage devel­op­ment, a deep­ened appre­ci­a­tion for lit­er­a­ture and an ongo­ing love for inde­pen­dent reading.

Themes, Val­ues and Vocabulary

The infor­ma­tion on this page includes not only the list of poems in the books and songs in the CDs but also an indi­ca­tion of the Themes and Val­ues pre­sented in them.

Ini­tial Read­ing in Spanish

For teach­ers or par­ents inter­ested in teach­ing or strength­en­ing ini­tial read­ing skills with songs, there is also a chart to indi­cate the syl­la­bles that are rein­forced through these poems and songs as well as a cor­re­la­tion with the ini­tial read­ing series Hag­amos caminos since many of these poems and songs are included in the Hag­amos caminos books.

Música amiga Guide

The Música amiga Teacher’s Guide offers gen­eral sug­ges­tions for the use of music in the class­room for vocab­u­lary, con­cepts and val­ues devel­op­ment, and spe­cific sug­ges­tions for the use of each song.

Apren­der can­tando, set of 2 cas­settes. These cas­settes explore how songs can facil­i­tate learn­ing in a vari­ety of ways. Recorded in Span­ish by Alma Flor Ada with numer­ous exam­ples of songs per­formed by Suni Paz.

Sig­nif­i­cance of the Use of Songs in the Classroom

The impor­tance of songs in the class­room can­not be overly empha­sized. Songs are a vehi­cle for both teach­ers and stu­dents to develop flu­ency in the lan­guage, improve pro­nun­ci­a­tion and into­na­tion, build vocab­u­lary, and develop their under­stand­ing of His­panic cul­ture. Learn­ing the tra­di­tional folk­lore cher­ished by fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties will strengthen Latino children’s sense of iden­tity; for English-speakers learn­ing Span­ish, songs and folk­lore will deepen their appre­ci­a­tion of the Span­ish language.

¡Qué rica la ronda! — Música amiga 1
[While every one of these vol­umes can be used for gen­eral pur­poses with any age chil­dren for the joy of poetry and music, this vol­ume is par­tic­u­larly suited for lan­guage and vocab­u­lary devel­op­ment as well as fam­ily and iden­tity values.]

Canta la letra — Música amiga 2
[While every­one of these vol­umes can be used for gen­eral pur­poses with any age chil­dren for the appre­ci­a­tion of poetry and music, this vol­ume is par­tic­u­larly suited for phone­mic aware­ness and the prac­tice of the five vow­els as well as fam­ily values.]

Corre al coro — Música amiga 4
[Every one of these vol­umes can be used with any age chil­dren for the appre­ci­a­tion of poetry and music, and the devel­op­ment of con­cepts and val­ues. All the poems in this vol­ume have been writ­ten by either Alma Flor Ada or Isabel Cam­poy. The CD offers a com­bi­na­tion of diverse music, lyric songs like El hada Hadaluna, lively songs like Jarabe tap­atío and Sube y baja and whim­si­cal invi­ta­tions to reflect like Mi back­pack, La cama de mi mae­stro y Soñar pal­abras.]

Do, re, mi, ¡sí, sí! — Música amiga 8
[There is much joy and humor in this book/CD com­bi­na­tion. The bal­lad of El señor don Gato has enchanted many gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren. Ofi­cios is a poem/song filled with humor that will delight read­ers and lis­ten­ers of any age. La llu­via one of Alma Flor’s favorites. Isabel’s three poems/songs in this title will elicit smiles and invite you to sing along.]

El camino de tu risa — Música amiga 9
[This title includes the work of some very well respected poets, José Martí, Mirta Aguirre and Jaime Fer­rán. It also includes two of Alma Flor’s best known poems/songs, Mi amiga, la som­bra and the inspir­ing Hag­amos caminos. Isabel con­tributes four poems/songs, one ded­i­cated to moth­ers, Día de las madres, another to fathers, Un beso de papá.]

El son del sol — Música amiga 10
[This title com­pletes the series with poems of some of the best poets in the Span­ish lan­guage, mas­ter­fully turned into songs by Suni Paz. Her ren­di­tions of Fer­nando Luján’s Cig­a­r­ras, of Mirta Aguirre’s Cabal­lito, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Doraba la luna el río and Jaime Fer­rán Las gace­las are evoca­tive and haunt­ingly beau­ti­ful. For Un son para niños antil­lanos by Nicolás Guil­lén and Can­ción de todos los niños del mundo she has cre­ated lively music that invites you to sing along. Four excel­lent poems/songs by Isabel Cam­poy make this a nec­es­sary title in every class­room. Isabel leads chil­dren in the reflec­tion of what it is to think in ¡Qué cosa diver­tida es pen­sar!, she brings the aware­ness of how vast knowl­edge is in La maes­tra tam­poco lo sabe, and she invites all to take respon­si­bil­ity in tak­ing care of life, Cuida la vida. Finally, she offers the most poignant song about the impor­tance of retain­ing our own lan­guage in No te olvides, no, a song that has become a true inspi­ra­tion for bilin­gual educators.